The Olympic Music Festival has reached another “round number,” as founder and music director Alan Iglitzin called it.

“You look forward to the round numbers,” said the father of the treasured chamber music festival, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this season. “It’s silly, but we do it. So the number was in my mind.

“You get to 30, and it’s a time to think about what happens next.”

There probably weren’t a lot of people around in 1984, when Iglitzin expanded the summer retreats of his Philadelphia String Quartet on the picturesque 55-acre former dairy farm near Quilcene to include public performances, that expected the festival to survive for 30 years, let alone establish itself as one of the most revered festivals — both by patrons and by visiting musicians — in the U.S.

“I know it’s amazing to me, that we’ve gone this long,” Iglitzin said during a telephone conversation last week from the tree-shaded house he shares with his wife, Leigh Hearon, on the festival grounds.

At 81, it would seem time for Iglitzin to be slowing down, both in his playing regimen and in his offstage duties, both as the festival’s music director and as the venue’s overseer. But he isn’t. Though he’s come to depend more and more on passionate young pianist Julio Elizalde for help with the programming of the seasons’ music and the recruitment of the necessary roster of musicians, he seems as involved as ever. He’ll be the violist for all or part of seven of the 2013 festival’s 10 weekends, and the dirt under his nails will be evidence of his continued presence in the festival grounds’ extensive flower, fruit and vegetable gardens.

“I enjoyed working with Julio after last season to program this season,” he said. “With his help, we finished earlier than we ever have, and Leigh and I were able to go off to India (a favorite Iglitzin destination, where he and Hearon were wed five years ago) for a month. We also went back to Philadelphia for a visit, and I didn’t have to worry about the festival at all.”

Hearon — who has maintained a career as a private investigator in Seattle even after the couple took up year-’round residence on the festival grounds three years ago — began work on Iglitzin’s memoirs, conducting extensive interviews during their time in India.

“She’s got the goods on me. She knows everything,” Iglitzin chuckled.

He said he’s excited as ever to begin another season, which for him includes matching licks with some of the country’s finest young musicians.

“It’s a challenge, but I’ll do it as long as I’m up to it,” he said of his ambitious playing regimen. “I kid around and say I want to show the kids up, but actually I’m mostly just trying to keep up.”